First Day of My Trip to Jordan

Madaba, Mount Nebo, Bethany - Beyond the Jordan, and The Dead Sea

Our first day in Jordan was jam packed! We started the morning early with sight seeing in Madaba. Madaba, known as "The City of Mosaics" has a 6th century map of Jerusalem. The mosaic map is an index map of the region of the of Jerusalem in the floor of a Greek Orthodox church. It was made out of more than 2 million pieces of colored stone. This mosaic contains the earliest representation of Byzantine Jerusalem. This map has been very helpful for scholars trying to learn more about the characteristics of, "The Holy Land."

After Madaba we ventured up to Mount Nebo. "Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day on one knows where his grave is. Deuteronomy 34: 1- 6

After the visit to Mount Nebo we headed over to another biblical site,

Bethany - Beyond the Jordan is one of the

newest/most significant

sites to be uncovered. A few years ago the pope and other religious officials declared this as the

official site where Jesus was baptized by John the

Baptist. Israel still claims

their side of the Jordan as

the site of the

baptism. Which if you look at the pictures below you can see why they claim it - the river is roughly 10 feet wide. Whose to say

which side of the river

Jesus was on. There are many passages in the bible that quote Bethany - Beyond the

Jordan (too many to write here).

Visiting the Jordan River was very

interesting. It is an occupied

military zone so you need to stay in groups and at one point you are looking across at Israel (see

photo).

Our final

sightseeing adventure was a dip in The Dead Sea. The three of us were not that excited about jumping in but figured we had better do it since we were in Jordan. We ended up having a great time in The Dead Sea and it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. It is a really strange feeling to float without effort. Even if you tried you would not be able to dive under. Make sure to look at the photo below of the "swimsuits" you can buy!

After The Dead Sea we drove the Dead Sea Highway all the way to the Southern tip of Jordan and spent the night in Aqaba (on the Red Sea). Yes, that is a picture of me pretending to be like Moses and part the Red Sea.